Sarajevo, 10 years after the troubles

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 01/04/2006 5:05 PM  |  Life

Two Indonesian journalists, including The Jakarta Post's Ati Nurbaiti were invited to Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for a seminar on freedom of speech representing the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI). Held shortly after the 10th anniversary of a peace agreement ending a four-year civil war, it was jointly organized by the Swedish International Liberal Center (SILC) and Young Liberals of Bosnia-Herzegovina from Dec. 8 to Dec. 11. The following are reports from the visit:

Screeching, pounding music fills the hall of the Labyrinth, one of the clubs teeming with young people on a snowy Saturday night. No need for posh fixtures here; brightly painted walls, multi level decks under the watch of the ""tower"" with non-stop DJ beats are enough to maintain the heat on the dance floor.

These ecstatic clubbers are part of those who grew up as pre-teens during the ""ethnic cleansing"" from 1992 to 1995 -- the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, formerly one of those in the former Yugoslavia, being the hardest hit with at least 110,000 killed and over 300,000 displaced.

Ten years after the war, Sarajevo is still slowly reconstructing both its buildings, infrastructure and, most importantly, its society. But some young townspeople say they do not quite like how society is now defined -- a country of, among other labels, ""Bosniak Muslims"", ""Orthodox Serbs"" and ""Catholic Croats,"" with major parties and all their rivals claiming to represent such identities.

These Sarayliyas, as the townspeople are called, guide a group of foreign visitors around their city's landmarks, and show obvious pride in Sarajevo's famed proximity of ancient churches, mosques and even a synagogue -- symbolizing the very opposite of the current ethnic-religious divisions in the country.

""Every normal person would be proud of this mix (of religions in Sarajevo),"" says Azemina Lendo.

Lendo is a student from the nearby city of Mostar, where people may not be so ""normal"" -- despite the end of hostilities, the city is still reportedly divided between the Catholic and Muslim quarters -- while Sarajevo ""has long been, and will always be, mixed"", says one of Lendo's friends.

Most of these twenty-somethings blame ""all problems"" on the post-war separation of states and society and express hope that one day they will all mingle again. While others remind them that ""there's been too much blood"" for such wishful thinking, there have been calls to review the 1995 Dayton Accord. It split the country into the Bosniak/Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Serbian-dominated Republic of Srpska apart from one disputed district under international supervision -- a split of barely four million people, which these youngsters shrug and smirk about.

Economic considerations

They are actually more worried about unemployment, estimated at about 40 percent, which means the anticipation of a long job hunt after graduation day.

""One day we will all become part of the European Union -- so why did we have to destroy ourselves, our economies?"" asks Edin Colic, current president of the Young Liberals of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a wing of the Liberal Party here.

To Colic and his friends the project to enforce domination of Serbs led by Slobodan Milosevic was, of course, pointless -- it only dragged their future into a bleak mess. Trying their former leader at the international tribunal was just a small first step; all eyes are on the entrance to the EU. While the EU may accept neighboring Croatia in a couple of years, negotiations for Bosnia and Herzegovina have just begun, meaning harder competition for jobs and markets beyond the Balkans.

Thus fussing over ethnic and/or religious identities is hard to accept for critics here. For one, the Serbian Democratic Party is ""more Serbian than Democratic,"" barks a professor of political science, Besim Spahic. He remarks that current divisions show that citizens seem to be ignorant of their heritage deriving from earlier inhabitants of the region such as the Illyrians and Romans apart from legacies of the Ottoman empire and the Austrian-Hungarian rulers.

""Yes there are all these mosques,"" Spahic adds, referring to the interests of the majority of Bosniaks, who are largely Muslim, ""but what about the factories, what about the brain drain?""

Asserting identities, even based on different versions of history -- is surely simpler for those vying for power than tracing all that heritage, and it is largely uncontested -- some blame public apathy on the ""sensationalist"" media recklessly celebrating its newfound freedom.

Like East Timor (Timor Leste), which Indonesia occupied from 1975 to 1999, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost at the end of its status of being an international protectorate overseen by a ""high representative"".

Now, says a press official with the parliament, ""We still need support to bring Bosnia and Herzegovina towards EU standards, but we longer need to be led like a child.""

Citizens here are engaged in another struggle, from their envoys inviting investors to see for themselves the diverse business opportunities, to the young resisting the categorization of themselves and their friends into different boxes. In addition to headaches of a new nation there's also the shift away from communism. But for a visiting Indonesian, the rapid deliverance of public service, even if it was only the processing of identity cards, was one sign of hope.

""It was quick and free, and people are still grumbling!"" marveled the journalist who had visited the office of the municipality of central Sarajevo.

A word of encouragement from one of the world's most corrupt countries: If you have got bickering politicians, but also public service officials who actually serve the public instead of expecting to be served, then you have one less big, big pain in the neck.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.